Jimmy Hill

Hill first came into football as a fan, regularly watching football at local club Crystal Palace. During his national service, Hill played three trial games for Folkestone Town before suffering a serious cartilage injury. However, he was recommended to Reading who he joined as an amateur, playing mainly for their third team before being told they would not offer him a professional contract. In 1949, Hill joined Brentford, making 87 appearances before moving to Fulham in March 1952, for whom he played nearly 300 games, scoring 52 goals. He set a club record by scoring five goals for Fulham in an away match against Doncaster Rovers in 1958 and was part of the team that gained promotion to the First Division. In 1957, he became chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) and campaigned to have the Football League's £20 maximum wage scrapped, which he achieved in January 1961, when Fulham teammate Johnny Haynes became the first £100-a-week player. He was one of many signatories of a letter to The Times on 17 July 1958 opposing "the policy of apartheid" in international sport and defending "the principle of racial equality which is embodied in the Declaration of the Olympic Games".

After leaving Coventry in 1967, Hill moved into broadcasting, acting as technical adviser to the BBC's football-based drama series United! before becoming Head of Sport at London's co-ITV region, London Weekend Television, from 1968 to 1972. He also co-hosted their 1970 World Cup coverage which, at his suggestion, used the first panel of football pundits. Along with his role in the abolition of the £20 per week maximum wage for players in English football in 1961, Hill was also instrumental in two other big rule changes in English football. The first of these was in August 1976, when the Football League agreed to Hill's suggestion to replace goal average with goal difference, with Hill explaining that goal average over the decades had favoured fewer goals conceded over more goals scored, which he believed should not be the case, with goal difference a way to ensure that more goals scored would be more rewarded over fewer goals conceded. Five years later in August 1981, the Football League agreed to Hill's suggestion of introducing three points for winning a match instead of two, with Hill saying that three points for a win would encourage teams to go for the win more rather than settle for a draw, with a win worth three times what a draw was worth instead of two times what a draw was worth. Hill was briefly LWT's Deputy Controller of Programmes, before joining the BBC to present Match of the Day. Hill made 600 appearances on the show, and became a television icon, instantly…

Hill was born in Balham, London, the son of William Thomas Hill, a World War I veteran, milkman, and bread delivery worker and Alice Beatrice Hill (née Wyatt). He was a pupil at Henry Thornton Grammar School, Clapham (1939–45), and later became President of the Old Boys' Association. He completed his national service as a clerk in the Royal Army Service Corps in which he attained the rank of Corporal and was considered a potential candidate for officer training.

Hill married three times, having three children by his first wife, Gloria, and two by his second, Heather. Hill published his autobiography, The Jimmy Hill Story, in 1998. He also wrote Striking for Soccer in 1963 and Tips from the Top, a football coaching book, in 1970. In September 2013 it was revealed that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2008. His children by his second wife expressed concern that they had no role in determining his care, as Hill had assigned power of attorney in 2005 to his third wife, Bryony, and a solicitor. Bryony Hill published a memoir in 2015, My Gentleman Jim, detailing her husband's illness. Hill died on 19 December 2015, aged 87. A celebration of Hill's life took place at Coventry Cathedral on 12 February 2016. Hill was the president of non-league team Corinthian Casuals. He lived in Hurstpierpoint, West Sussex. Hill is credited with writing the words to Arsenal's 1971 Top 10 hit "Good Old Arsenal".